NGC 1097 is a bright barred seyfert galaxy
with an active nucleus (AGN). It is known to have the longest
optical jets of any known galaxy. Other galaxies possessing optical
jets include M87 and NGC 5128. The jets of NGC 1097 have very
low surface brightness and are visible only in deep exposures
using aggressive data manipulation. The jets were intially discovered
by Halton Arp in 1975 and their nature has remained somewhat controversial.
The four jets seem to point away from the galaxy forming an "X"
which traced backward intersect at the nucleus of the galaxy.
Jet 2, the brightest jet, shows a peculiar "dogleg",
a narrow filament that ends with a right-angle turning into a
tangential arc. This feature is peculiar but not unique (see NGC4651)
and can be seen in tidal plumes of ejected stars.

Since the four jets appear to radiate from
NGC 1097's active nucleus, it was natural that early interpretations
invoked an "ejection" phenomenon related to its active
galactic nucleus similar to M87's jet. Two papers ( Wherle, et.
al. 1997, AJ) (Higdon, et all. 2003, AJ) investigated the nature
of the jets and came to new conclusions based on X-ray and radiowave
data: 1) the jets have little neutral hydrogen 2) the colors are
very blue, consistent with starlight 3) morphologically, the jets
are different than the jets of M87 and not likely due to an "ejection"
phenomenon. It was proposed that the jets of NGC 1097 are likely
the result of an ancient merger event in the history of NGC 1097
in which a dwarf companion galaxy was cannabalized and incorporated
into it's disk. The apparent X pattern of these jets
is highly consistent with computer simulations of such an event.

To add to the mystery of NGC 1097 and its
optical jets, X-ray and radio images of NGC 1097 show lobes of
emission and several bright focal sources in line with the jets.
Many of these focal sources are known to represent Quasars. According
to traditional theory Quasars are extremely distant objects but
intriguingly their numbers increase toward the galaxy and they
seem to be aligned with the jets. For distant objects that have
no connection to the galaxy, this remains unexplained.